Friday, May 13, 2011

Just Graduated! + Balancing Act (trailer)

Well, I did it folks. I graduated.

This week's been CRAZY. The Dusty Film & Animation Festival kicked off on Sunday night with the screening for all of our films. 4 straight hours of animated shorts by myself and my classmates played that night and it was a BIG hit. Many of which included some of these fine folks:

My film, "Balancing Act" was early on in the screening, #6 to be exact. Hundreds of people sitting in those seats finally got to see what I've been working on for not just a solid year...but in a way, what I've been working on for over a decade. Finally, my biggest project yet, a story I've been developing since I was in Elementary school, has made its first big step into the world. Here's the trailer for my thesis film: "Balancing Act"

I know I've been saying this on all of the last several blog posts, but huge thanks to EVERYONE who helped me with this. Everybody from my thesis adviser Richard Gorey, my classmates and teachers over the last 4 years, the folks that worked on the NiN10Doh! collabs who assisted with some clean-up, coloring and a LOT of backgrounds, my amazing cast of actors and sound designers and everyone who provided helpful feedback in making this thing come alive.

I also wanna congratulate everyone else who was part of my graduating year. You all did a fantastic job and we made a really strong year of students to represent SVA. In particular, BIG congrats to two of my best friends from school, Zach Bellissimo and Michael J. Ruocco (whom some of you know from their work on the first twoNiN10Doh! collabs). The two of them tied for "Outstanding Traditional Animation" and Zach won "Best 2D Character Design" Dusty Awards on Tuesday night when the award show took place. MAJOR props to them, as well as Mirella Toncheva who won "Best Production Design" and Zack Williams who won "Outstanding Stop-Motion Animation" and "Best Stop-Motion Character" Design awards. You guys rock!

Yesterday we had the ceremony, took lotsa cheesy pictures, had one more party and headed our separate ways as graduates. Now it's time for the game to REALLY begin. I've got a LOT of things already on my plate, but I'm really excited to start working. I hope everyone who's reading this will stick with me and look forward to some of the stuff I have in store!